Diarist 19

Diarist 19 in the year to March 2026:
Status: husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, household manager Household size: 7 (he. wife, daughter and her husband, 2 granddaughters)
Occupation: restaurant owner, farmer. Education: none (offspring are educated)
Major assets: large house and homestead plot; 1/3 acre farmland, cows
Net income in the year to March 2026: 202,609 taka (USD 1,674 PPP$ 6,322, or PPP$ 2.48 per day per person): Income in kind: about 90,000 in the year
End Sep 2025 balances at formal FSPs: Savings 2,832 taka, Loans 1,800
main worry about his family, May 2025: my own health, and my youngest daughter who lives far off and I have little contact with her

Diarist 19's household is one of the bigger ones we track. It is a traditional one, based originally on farming land they own bordering the river. When we started they were 9 in number: Diarist 19 himself, at that time about 60 years old, his wife, a married daughter with her husband and baby son, and the wife and baby of an adopted son who lives abroad. Also, a 17 year old daughter (then at home, not in school or work, subsequently married) and a 13 year old son (then in class 6). Another two daughters were married and living away. Diarist 19 and his wife are illiterate but the younger ones are schooled.

They have a third of an acre of farmland where he grows rice and lentils, and they sharecrop in another two-thirds of an acre and grow bananas. They also raise cows. They have a substantial old home on a fairly large plot. In March 2017 he and his wife opened a small restaurant at the nearby crossroads (he had once before run a food shop). Now he spends most of his time sitting in and supervising the shop, helped by his wife, one son-in-law who goes to market each day for supplies, of which the biggest element by far is beef, and one or two hired hands. Another son-in-law helps with the farming. See chart 05 for more on what is served in the restaurant.

Diarist 19's home

Diarist 19, chart 01, primary balance

The chart gives us a glimpse of the impact of Covid. There was a short sharp lockdown in April-May 2020 when the shop had to be closed. It recovered, but didn't return to the level of sales of the pre-Covid period even in nominal, let alone real, terms.

Gifts

We recorded only 3 gifts received by Diarist 19: 50,000 taka from a brother-in-law when they started their shop, and smaller ones from a son-in-law (abroad) via his daughter. But they gave 39 gifts to others outside the household, mostly his children once they had married, or those children's spouses. The biggest gifts, of up to 150,000 taka, were to help set them up with land. Smaller gifts went for religious purposes, marriages, and to help neighbours in difficulties. Gifts were not an important part of how Diarist 19 made his income or managed his expenses.

Diarist 19, chart 02, gifts

Loans

Chart 03 shows that borrowing was used but was not dominant in financing Diarist 19's business. In the early years his wife and two daughters each had a Grameen Bank account, and took loans from that source, mostly for their own use: Diarist 19 grumbled about this (he funded the repayments) and tried to stop it, and it disappeared after 2018 (in chart 03 you can see the small weekly repayments). He took howlats from family and friends when he needed them for opening the shop or changing premises, which wasn't often, and he maintained an account at the Co-op which he has used for a few loans.

He has also given howlats.

Diarist 19, chart 03, loans

Savings

When set against the transaction values of Diarist 19's business, his saving record also looks modest. The biggest single sets of transactions were short-term storage of lump sums which were quickly withdrawn and used - in 2017 to set up the shop and in 2020 to get the shop going again after Covid in the new premises.

Nevertheless they saved frequently. His daughters used Grameen Banks excellent GPS accumulating savings device as well as Grameen's regular weekly savings. After Diarist 19 weened his family off MFIs (and the daughters got married) he has used the Co-op exclusively. Altogether they made over 2,500 separate deposits, and saved over half a million taka, in the period up to end 2024.

Diarist 19, chart 04, savings

What's for lunch?

The restaurant is in a simple timber-framed, corrugated-tin structure. It sits at a busy crossroads (near where Diarist 16 sells his vegetables). It caters mainly for working men looking for a simple value-for-money lunch, and for people needing a cup of tea and some snacks or sweets.

He buys stock daily, from local markets.

Chart 05 shows what he spent on stock for the shop during the second half of 2024. Beef comes top. Milk is a strong second, because he needs it to make the much-loved Bengali sweets. Fruit barely manages to get into the chart.

Our Manager Kalim in the shop

Diarist 19, chart 05, shop stock purchases

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